


Tangerine Trees

by flowerfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drug Use, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 02:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10709991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerfan/pseuds/flowerfan
Summary: Steve and Bucky have a bad trip, but they come out okay.  No thanks to Thor.





	Tangerine Trees

**Author's Note:**

> TW: drug use, imagined blood/injury.

Bucky waves his hands above his head, watching the orange and red swirls that trail from his fingertips. Soon there are two more hands waving, twisting around his own, blue and purple joining and creating a rainbow of shining color.

There’s a laugh, sunshine yellow, and Bucky turns to see Steve gazing at him. Steve is shining, glowing golden and pure. Bucky laughs too, letting the sound flow over his body.

He feels good, he realizes, light. There’s no pain in his shoulder or his chest. No ache behind his eyes. He tells Steve how good he feels, and then he has to show him, standing up and stretching to touch the sky. 

Steve follows, running his hands down Bucky’s body, up again along his arms. They’re pressed together, dancing in the rainbow, sparks flying between them. Steve grabs him by his metal hand and spins him, not noticing the difference between his metal hand and his flesh one, not pausing to ask if it’s okay, and it’s good, it’s perfect. Bucky leans in to kiss him, heat exploding where their lips touch, and Steve grins wide, then spins him out again.

Bucky’s full of energy, electricity sparking through him. He wants to move, wants to soar. “I want to fly, Steve.” Steve picks him up, hoists him over his shoulder and launches him across the room.

It’s amazing. He’s a bird, weightless and free, and then he lands with a crash into the couch, bouncing and rolling on to the floor. He’s up in a flash. “Again!”

Steve does it again, propelling him to the other side of the room, and it’s just as fantastic. But the next time his landing isn’t as soft, the couch isn’t there. He’s climbing up from under a broken pile of… something… and then there’s a bad sound, a keening, terrible sound.

“Bucky, Bucky no…” he hears.

Steve is hunched over, arms out, reaching for something. His eyes are wild.

Bucky tries to get to him, but he can’t move quickly enough. His legs are heavy. The ground is soft, sucking his feet down with every step. Mud, quicksand, holding him in place.

“Bucky, don’t fall, grab my hand,” Steve moans. “Don’t fall, please, Bucky, no…”

The world is gray and black, now, and Bucky hurts, hurts all over, and he can’t get to Steve. He wants to yell out to him, tell him he’s coming, but he can’t make a sound. Steve keeps calling for him, and Bucky concentrates on moving his feet, moving his legs, until suddenly there’s a bridge and he runs across it, finding Steve on the other side.

“Steve, I’m here, I’m here,” Bucky says. He cups his hands around Steve’s face and tries to get him to see him, but Steve flails away. Bucky tackles him to the floor, knees on either side of his chest, arms pinned, but Steve twists and shoves Bucky off.

Bucky leaps and grabs Steve again. Then they’re rolling, slamming against furniture and walls and Steve is still crying out for Bucky, as if he wasn’t there at all. 

Bucky slams Steve back down on to the floor and flips him over, and Steve’s face is covered in blood. Bucky flinches back, horrified, and wraps his arms around himself. His own arms are bleeding, there’s blood everywhere, it’s soaked through his shirt and pooling on the floor. Steve crawls towards him, his face a broken mess. Bucky curls in on himself in shame.

*****

“Don’t go in there, they’re high as supersoldier kites. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’ll smash you like a tiny, tiny spider – pun intended.”

“They must have taken that crap Thor brought last night. We’ve got to do something.”

“I’m aware. JARVIS, get Banner, he’s in the lab. Fast.”

*****

Steve is crawling closer, reaching out to pull Bucky’s hands away from his face. Bucky tries to get away, but there’s a wall at his back and suddenly Steve is there, arms wrapped around him, holding him tight. Bucky shivers and shakes but he lets Steve hold him. If he’s dying, if he’s going to bleed out and die right now, at least Steve is here. 

Steve is petting his head and he can hear him speaking, now, words of comfort and assurance, and Bucky’s shaking calms. He looks down, expecting to see the blood over them both, but it’s gone. All gone. 

Bucky slides away from Steve and rips at his clothes, revealing his metal arm, and his flesh one, both unharmed. “Steve, what the hell is going on?” he breathes out, blinking hard as the blood disappears from Steve’s face as well. “I thought…”

Steve looks confused, but runs his hand down Bucky’s arms, shaking his head. “Your metal arm can’t bleed,” Steve says, as if he was reading Bucky’s mind. Maybe he is. Maybe this is all a dream. Or maybe he’s finally lost his mind, gone completely insane. Maybe he’s back in cryo, mind-wiped and blank and alone-

“No, Bucky, no.” Steve has him by the arms, shaking him. “You’re here with me. Not in cryo. With me. This isn’t a dream. This is real.”

“Then what the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know, I-” Steve lets go of Bucky, spinning around. There’s someone else in the room now, a figure coming towards them. Steve shifts to put himself between Bucky and the intruder. He’s tall, with tentacles waving from his back, and a terrifying mouth full of sharp teeth. He’s also carrying a spear. 

Bucky surges with adrenalin and he flies towards the monster, knocking the weapon out of his hands.

The monster stays down and Steve grabs Bucky, pulls him into a small, enclosed space. It’s a bunker, dark and damp and lined with concrete. “HYDRA,” Steve breathes out. “We’ll be safe here.”

The bunker is lined with clothes, but they shove them out of the way and put their backs to the door and brace themselves for the inevitable explosion. HYDRA likes to blow things up. 

“It’s okay, Stevie,” Bucky mumbles, grabbing Steve’s hand as they ready for impact. “We can take it. We’ll face it together. ‘Til the end of the line.”

*****

“Nice try, Banner.” Tony takes the syringe from Bruce and hands him an ice pack for his face. “Good job not hulking out, though. A plus for effort.”

“Told you this wouldn’t work. They’re not going to let someone stick needles in them.” Natasha paces around the conference room they’ve gathered in while they unsuccessfully try to figure out how to help Steve and Bucky.

“Told you I should have gone in with the suit,” Tony says.

“They’d just get hurt fighting you. Plus, I don’t think they’d react all that well to Iron Man confronting them again,” Bruce says, collapsing into a chair and pressing the ice pack to his lip.

“Yeah, no, probably not.” Tony admits. “What if we just try talking to them? JARVIS could sing them a lullaby, or something. Hum a happy tune. Turn their trip around.”

“Right now they’re hiding in a closet. They think HYDRA is after them. I don’t think a sing-along is going to help.”

Bruce looks up. “They’re in a closet?” He opens up a screen in front of them and starts paging through diagrams. “JARVIS, show me the air vents in their apartment. I’ve got an idea.”

*****  
Bucky wakes up with a heavy weight on his chest, and panics only for a moment before he realizes it’s just Steve. Steve, who has apparently decided that the most comfortable way to sleep off whatever the hell just happened to them is by starfishing himself over Bucky’s entire body. 

He turns his head as much as he can and looks around. They’re still in their bedroom closet, which apparently seemed to be a bunker at some point during the night. Clothes have been pulled off hangers, boxes opened and dumped out, as if someone decided to ransack the place. But the closet door is now open, and there’s an envelope on the floor just out of his reach.

“Steve, wake up.” Bucky pushes weakly at Steve’s broad shoulder. “You weigh a ton, buddy. Budge over.”

Steve groans and digs his pointy chin into Bucky’s chest. “Don’t wanna.”

“Steve, come on,” Bucky says softly, running his metal fingers through Steve’s hair. He smells awful – they both do – in fact, the whole room smells like a locker room which has been cleaned with toxic chemicals.

“Bucky…” Steve lifts his head and blinks his blue eyes at him. “What happened?”

Bucky can’t shrug with Steve still laying on him. “Not sure.”

Steve sighs out a long, sour breath, and slides off Bucky, still keeping his arm draped over Bucky’s bare chest. “I feel like crap.”

“Me too.”

They lie there in silence for a few minutes, and then Steve raises up on an elbow, frowning. “Wait, do you remember-”

“I really don’t feel like playing that game right now,” Bucky says, and Steve pokes him with a finger.

“Not like that, jerk. Do you remember the party last night? Clint was making cocktails for everyone?”

Bucky thinks back through the haze. “He was making them in colors to match our superhero costumes, uh, uniforms.”

“And you were sad because yours was black.”

Bucky laughs, although it comes out more like a croak given how dry his throat is. “I was sad because it wasn’t going to get me drunk, not because it was black.”

Steve’s concerned face relaxes. “Oh, that’s good.” 

“But it couldn’t have been the cocktails. You didn’t even drink yours.”

Steve’s eyes widen, as if he’s just coming back to the story. “No, it wasn’t the cocktails. It was Thor. Remember? He said he had something that would make us happy, even if Midgardian alcohol wouldn’t do the trick.”

“Fuck, he did.” Bucky pushes himself upright, ignoring for now the pounding in his head. “Were we actually stupid enough to take drugs from a stranger?”

“Thor’s not a stranger, he’s-”

“Yeah I know, it’s a saying, it’s still stupid.”

Steve huffs and sits up too, leaning his shoulder against Bucky’s. “Guess you didn’t take all the stupid with you. Must have left some for me.” Steve sees the envelope on the floor, and stretches out his leg to pull it closer with a bare toe.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t know.”

Steve opens it, and pulls out a note. “Dear Steve and Bucky,” he reads. “Sorry we had to flood your suite with the antidote. The smell should clear out in a few hours. JARVIS says to drink some water and get some rest. Brunch is at noon and your attendance is required. Natasha promises not to play any videos of your shenanigans until you get there.”

Steve looks at Bucky, face drawn. “I actually doubt that any videos of us from last night would be very entertaining,” he says quietly. “It really wasn’t a good time, was it?”

“No, it really wasn’t.” Bucky stands up, groaning a little, and holds a hand out to Steve. “Come on, let’s go get some rest. In our bed.”

They hobble over to the bed, stripping down to their boxers and climbing under the covers.

“I think we may have broken some of the furniture,” Steve says.

“Furniture can be replaced,” Bucky says. He presses a soft kiss to Steve’s lips, and then tucks himself tightly against Steve’s side. “We’re okay, right?”

Steve rubs a hand up and down Bucky’s back, and shuffles them even closer together. “’Course we’re okay. It wasn’t real.”

“It felt real,” Bucky says softly. “It felt awful.”

Steve nods against his forehead. “Yeah.” He tugs the blanket over them both, then goes back to stroking Bucky’s back. “Hey, did I throw you across the room?”

Bucky chuckles. “You did. Multiple times. It was actually really fun.”

“Bet we could get Tony to build some kind of net in the gym, and do it again. Or he could make you wings, like Sam’s.”

“Maybe just to try out. Wouldn’t want to step on Sam’s toes.”

“Fair enough.” 

Bucky closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but he keeps seeing images from his hallucinations the night before – Steve’s bloody face, the monster with the spear. From the way Steve keeps resettling himself underneath him, he thinks he’s having the same problem.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“I think we smell too bad to fall asleep.”

Steve pushes back from Bucky, his eyes alight with amusement. “I couldn’t agree more. Shower?”

Bucky whips the blankets off of them and holds out his hand to Steve. “Shower.”

Later, after they’ve let hot water clean away the remains of their nightmares, and Bucky’s favorite coconut lime body wash has been liberally applied, they climb into the fresh sheets of the bed in their second, hardly used bedroom. They’re wearing clean pajama pants, soft and comfortable, and Bucky’s got on one of Steve’s stretched out t-shirts. He buries his face in the crook of Steve’s neck and lets himself relax.

“I know you said you’d follow me anywhere,” Steve says, brushing a wet strand of hair off Bucky’s cheek and tucking it behind his ear. “But next time, maybe we should ask where we’re going first.”

Bucky laughs. “Good advice.” Wherever it might be, though, Bucky knows he’ll be safe as long as he’s with Steve, bad trip or not. He inches closer, inhales the smell of him, and suddenly isn’t very sleepy anymore.

Deliberately, Bucky drags his lips up Steve’s jawline, then presses a firm kiss to his lips. 

Steve kisses him back, mouth falling open, and Bucky can tell he’s trying to decide whether these are particularly nice about-to-go-sleep-kisses or the start of something more involved. Bucky slides his fingertips under the waistband of Steve’s pajama pants and pauses. Steve hums in approval, and turns to press a leg between Bucky’s thighs.

“I’m pretty sure I know where this is going,” Bucky whispers in Steve’s ear, just before he nips at his earlobe, earning a low whine from Steve. “And I like it a lot.”

“Me too, Buck. Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.


End file.
